Bio:

Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs is a queer black trouble-maker and a black feminist love evangelist. She walks in the legacy of black lady school teachers in post slavery communities who offered sacred educational space to the intergenerational newly free in exchange for the random necessities of life. As the first person to do archival research in the papers of Audre Lorde, June Jordan and Lucille Clifton while achieving her PhD in English, Africana Studies and Women’s Studies at Duke University, she honors the lives and creative works of Black feminist geniuses as sacred texts for all people. She believes that in the time we live in, access to the intersectional holistic brilliance of the black feminist tradition is as crucial as learning how to read.

Programs:

Mobile Homecoming: Amplifying Generations of Black LGBTQ Brilliance
A multi-media presentation based on hundreds of interviews with Black LGBTQ visionaries.

“Because I Know the Truth”: Ending Sexual Violence
Alexis shares her own experience as a survivor of sexual violence on her college campus and draws on the legacy of Black feminist anti-rape activist June Jordan.

In Your Hands: Purpose and the Presence of Our Ancestors
A multi-media presentation including sound, music, video and poetry based on Alexis’s study of Black Feminist Chosen Ancestors

My People: Responding to Police Brutality
multi-media poetic presentation on contemporary police brutality